


all of my goodness is gone with you now

by iphigenias



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode Fix-it, F/M, Theon lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 03:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: Theon looks at her and thinks: we were both ghosts of Winterfell, once.





	all of my goodness is gone with you now

**Author's Note:**

> i have so much uni work to do it isn't even funny but i had to write a fix-it fic where theon doesn't die because for fuck's sake, haven't they suffered enough?
> 
> i tagged theon and robb as friendship but in my head it's romantic. so read it however you want, i guess.
> 
> title is from 'shrike' by hozier

Theon dreams of a castle of ghosts. Of a broken tower, and a crown of snow.

He dreams of a sword red to the hilt. Of a direwolf with glassy eyes and a body not its own. He dreams of Robb –

 

_“Still got your sea legs, Greyjoy?” he laughs as Theon stumbles on the dismount._

_“What’s your excuse?” Theon retorts, but Robb only laughs all the harder_ –

 

and a river of blood. It drowns him.

 

/

 

Winterfell appears on the horizon like a storm cloud. Theon has entered its gates as hostage, as friend, as betrayer and murderer and less than a man. He does not think about what he will be today.

“It’s huge,” one of his men remarks, voice awestruck. There is a murmuring of assent in the ranks. Theon remembers the first time he laid eyes on the castle – the way it had jutted out of the land like a piece of meteorite from the sky. Theon had felt suffocated by the heated, silent stone inside. He’d strained his ears to hear the sea, leagues and leagues away, and cried himself to sleep that first night sure he would be put to the sword come morning.

He’d been given a sword instead. A wooden one, held under Ser Rodrick’s wary gaze, of a length to spar with the stick in Robb’s hand –

 

_“You’re dead,” the young lord says with his stick pressed into Theon’s doublet over his heart._

_Theon swats it away. “What is dead may never die,” he replies, and spits into the dirt. Robb’s face creases up for just a moment before he laughs._

_“That doesn’t make any sense.”_

_“You don’t make any sense,” Theon grumbles, but he can feel a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth –_

and heavier than it looked.

“Come on,” Theon says to the men, and urges his horse into a canter. The distance from here to Winterfell folds like a letter, and Theon can feel the hot wax seal of the winter sun beating down on the back of his neck.

They reach the gates in the space between one breath and the next. “You sure they won’t kill us, my lord?”

Theon dismounts. The guards already have their hands on their swords. “No,” he says, and steps into a memory.

 

/

 

They agree, reluctantly, to bring Theon to the Dragon Queen. The passageways of the castle are as warm and unforgiving as he remembers. Theon had once stridden down them – had raced through them with Robb – had shuffled, as quietly as Reek could manage, along the flagstones in Ramsay’s wake.

They halt in a meeting chamber. “The Queen is conversing with the Lady of Winterfell,” a young woman from across the sea tells them, her nose wrinkled at the sight of the Ironborn in their salt-stained armour. “She will see you when she is ready.”

 _The Lady of Winterfell_. Theon thinks of Lady Stark, and a bloody smile that haunts his dreams. He thinks of a wall, and standing on the edge of it – of jumping off, in freefall, praying the snow below would catch her.

Theon has not thought about Sansa –

 

_“We can’t slow down!” he tells her, tugging her through the slush as fast as he is able._

_“You try running with these skirts on,” Sansa replies in a huff, but she picks up the pace all the same. Theon glances over; her lips are almost as blue as her eyes._

_“I think,” he pants, “that would be,” stumbles, pulls himself back up, “a strange sight indeed.”_

_Her laugh is more of a gasp than anything else but Theon hears it. Tightens his grip on her hand. Tries not to wonder when the last time she laughed was – tries not to think about if she’ll have the chance to again –_

 

as much as he could help it. It hurts too much, like a sword through the gut.

The door to the chamber opens. A woman with hair like fresh snow strides in first, but Theon can’t shift his gaze from Sansa. She is looking back at him like she has seen a ghost.

Theon answers the Queen’s questions. His pulse feels like it is moving both too fast and too slow. He looks at Sansa again.

“If you’ll have me,” he says, and does not hear a reply if she gives one because he is busy being swept up in her arms like the sea.

 

/

 

“I thought you had died,” Sansa tells him when they are alone. “I thought I’d left you to die.”

“You didn’t,” Theon says. She smiles at him. The bruises on her face are all gone now, and the light from the candle dusts her nose and cheekbones in gold. She looks sacrilegious – half lady, half goddess. Theon would fall to his knees if she asked.

“I’m sorry it has to be here,” she says after a moment. Theon looks at her and thinks: we were both ghosts of Winterfell, once. He looks at her and says –

 

_I would stay, Theon thinks, “If you’ll have me,” he says, and Sansa’s face creases just like Robb’s used to –_

 

“I am not scared of a castle.”

 

/

 

So many years ago it feels like two lifetimes, Theon loosed an arrow that saved Bran’s life. The boy was annoying – incessantly asking questions, underfoot whenever Theon wanted a moment of quiet with Robb alone – but he was Ned Stark’s son and for that, he couldn’t die.

 _I am Balon Greyjoy’s son_ , Theon had thought as he notched his bow, _and for that, I will die_.

He’d taken the shot all the same.

This Bran is different. Unsettling. Theon wheels him through the snow to the heart tree and makes himself remember why he is here.

“I’m sorry,” he says, after a few minutes of silence. The battle has not yet begun. “For everything.”

Bran looks at him. There is something in his gaze that makes Theon feel as though he’s being torn apart. “You saved Sansa,” he replies. Theon’s mouth twists.

“She saved me first.”

Bran looks at him a moment longer. “Don’t die,” he says at last, and lets his eyes white out.

“Easier said than done,” Theon says under his breath. He thinks of Yara –

 

_“Don’t die so far from the sea,” she says, and leaves before Theon has the chance to answer –_

 

and prays he will see her again. He is in a godswood, after all. Perhaps the Stark gods will be kinder than his own.

 

/

 

Theon pulls his sword from the body of a walking corpse and kicks it into the snow, now brown with dirt and blood. He is hemmed in on all sides by the army of the Night King – and then a chill descends into the air. Theon is already cold – now his blood freezes. He turns to face the end.

The Night King is no taller than the ordinary man. Theon thinks, absurdly, that he is shorter than Sansa – he imagines a glimpse of her standing beside the nightmare, thinks of how her burnished copper hair would soften the icy blue of those eyes as they stare into Theon’s soul. The vision is gone in an instant – Theon would die a thousand deaths rather than see Sansa face the Night King for real. But the thought of her, as fleeting as it was –

 

_“I would have taken you all the way to the Wall,” Theon says as his heart breaks._

_Sansa hugs him. She is as thin as a blade of grass, and cold as the Long Night. When she pulls away she holds Theon’s heart in her dirt-stained hands, whole again –_

 

reignites something in his chest. He grips his sword with both hands like a lance – “What is dead may never die,” he whispers under his breath – the red leaves of the weirwood usher him on as surely as the sound of the sea calls him home –

 

_I should have been with him. Where was I? I should have died with him –_

 

and he charges.

A sword through the gut is as painful as he’d imagined.

 

/

 

Someone has placed a damp cloth over his forehead, and the room he’s in is warm enough to be uncomfortable.

He opens his eyes.

Stone walls and ceiling – Winterfell. He recognises this room – it’s Robb’s old bedchamber. There is someone sitting in a chair beside the bed.

“Did you really think I would let you die on me?” Sansa says, and her voice is wet with tears. She lifts the cloth from Theon’s brow and brushes the hair from his sticky forehead. “After everything?”

Theon tries to speak but coughs instead. He struggles into a seated position, Sansa’s hands on his arm, his back, helping him up. “Never, Lady Sansa,” he manages to say.

“Just as much of as ass as ever,” she replies, eyebrows arched, and rests a hand against his cheek. “You need rest.”

“Stay with me,” Theon says without pause. Sansa smiles.

“If you’ll have me,” she says, and stays.

**Author's Note:**

> i googled it and getting stabbed in the lower abdomen increases chances of survival so let's just pretend that's what happened! delusion: convince yourself


End file.
